The MaSMi (Magnetically Shielded Miniature) Hall thruster is designed to provide a low-power, long life, and high efficiency electric propulsion system to meet the demands of future and near-term space missions. The device was conceived to fill a current technology gap: no Hall thruster demonstrates long operational life (10,000+ hrs.) & high efficiency (50+ %) at low power levels (< 500 W). Initial performance testing of the MaSMi Hall thruster revealed a calculated thrust of 19 mN with a specific impulse of 1870 s at a total efficiency of 43% (59% anode efficiency). Calculated erosion rates of the thruster's discharge channel suggest an increase in operational life by approximately 3 orders of magnitude when compared to conventional low-power Hall thrusters. Future efforts will include further validation of these performance metrics and computational modeling of the plasma inside the MaSMi Hall thruster's discharge channel.

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